Why this article exists
The first practical question every family asks before Gaya is what the whole thing will cost. The answers online are of two kinds. One kind is a single low figure with nothing behind it. The other is a town-wide rate card — dharamshala from three hundred, thali from a hundred — assembled by someone who is not the one you will pay, and which quietly leaves out the cost of the rite itself. Neither helps a family put a number in the diary.
This article does the opposite. Every figure below is one we quote ourselves — the same figures on our cost page, the same ones our desk prices a booking from. They are shown as "from" figures because the amount moves with the family's own choices, and the arithmetic is written out so you can check it. If your dates fall in Pitru Paksha, read the section on that before adding anything up.
The three things a family pays for
Strip the journey down and there are three lines: the rite — pooja by the shastras, full samagri and dakshina, one figure; the stay; and the vehicle, on the days one is needed. Everything else — meals, daan the family chooses to make, a doli up Pret Shila for an elder — sits outside these four and is decided by the family on the day.
The first is fixed by what the family wants done and does not change with the season. The other two — the stay and the vehicle — are the ones that move, and they are the ones a family should settle early.
1. The rite: pooja, samagri and dakshina in one figure
The ordinary Gaya Shraddh — tarpan at the Falgu, the pind at Vishnupad, the sufal beneath Akshay Vat, all three within two hundred metres of one another — is from ₹5,100. That figure is the whole rite: pooja by the shastras, full samagri and dakshina. The dakshina to the Tirth Purohit is inside it, not added at the end, and nothing else is added on the day. It is done in one morning. Families with an untimely death in the lineage add Pret Shila, about eight kilometres north, and the four-site rite is from ₹8,500; it needs a vehicle for that day.
The fuller observances are a different scale. The three-day rite across all forty-five vedis is from ₹25,000 and needs a vehicle on each of its days. The seventeen-day Vrihad Gaya Shraddh is from ₹75,000. Consultation rites — Tripindi Shraddh from ₹11,000, Narayan Bali from ₹31,000, the Pitru Dosh puja from ₹15,000 — are priced on their own pages and are prescribed, not chosen from a menu; the Pandaji says which one a family's situation calls for. Why two quotes for the same-sounding rite can be far apart is explained separately.
2. Dakshina and daan: which is in the figure
Dakshina is the offering to the Tirth Purohit at the close of the rite, and by the shastras it is what completes a shraddh. On many sites it appears after the rite as a second, unstated amount; here it is inside the figure, so the family is never asked for it separately at the vedi. A family that wishes to give more with its own hands may, and nobody will name a figure or press for one.
Keep dakshina apart from daan. Brahmin bhoj, gau daan, vastra daan and the rest are separate acts a family may choose to add, priced on the day, and written up on their own. Nothing in this article assumes them.
3. The stay: per room, per night
Gaya now has the whole range, from a dharamshala bed to a hotel a family from a big city would recognise. These are the rest-of-year figures we book at, per room per night, and they are the same ones on our stay and travel page. Two people share a room; a family of four takes two.
| Room | From, per night | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Dharamshala | ₹1,000 | A couple or a small family on one night; plain, near the rite |
| Dharamshala, AC | ₹1,500 | The same, in the warm months |
| Hotel room, non-AC | ₹1,500 | Families who want a private room and their own bathroom |
| Hotel room, AC | ₹2,500 | Elders, small children, or anyone arriving after a long journey |
4. The vehicle: per day, only on the days it is needed
The ordinary three-site rite needs no vehicle: the Falgu ghat, Vishnupad and Akshay Vat are a short walk apart, and a dharamshala near Vishnupad puts the family within walking distance of all three. A vehicle enters the sum in three cases — the Pret Shila day, each day of the forty-five-vedi rite, and a pickup from Gaya Junction or the airport. We price a local vehicle at ₹3,500 for the day, and 5% GST applies to the vehicle and the stay, which is why those lines carry it below and the pooja does not.
Three families, added up
Rest-of-year figures, no daan and no meals. Read them as the shape of a bill, not a quotation; your own is built from the same lines with your dates in.
| Line | A couple, one morning | Family of four, two nights, with Pret Shila | Family of four, three days, all 45 vedis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rite (pooja, samagri, dakshina) | Three sites — ₹5,100 | Four sites — ₹8,500 | 45 vedis, 3 days — ₹25,000 |
| Stay | Dharamshala, 1 room × 1 night — ₹1,000 | Hotel AC, 2 rooms × 2 nights — ₹10,000 | Dharamshala AC, 2 rooms × 3 nights — ₹9,000 |
| Vehicle | None — all three sites on foot | 1 day, for Pret Shila — ₹3,500 | 3 days — ₹10,500 |
| GST 5% on stay + vehicle | on ₹1,000 — ₹50 | on ₹13,500 — ₹675 | on ₹19,500 — ₹975 |
| Total | ₹6,150 | ₹22,675 | ₹45,475 |
Pitru Paksha changes two of the four lines
The rite does not change with the calendar. The stay does, sharply: in the fortnight of Pitru Paksha every room in Gaya is taken, and rates do not rise so much as leap — two or three times the figures in the table is normal, and the good rooms go first. A vehicle can cost more too, because the roads to Pret Shila are slow that fortnight. So the couple in the first column might pay ₹8,000 to ₹9,000 in Pitru Paksha rather than ₹6,150, almost all of it the room.
The other change is not in the money. In Pitru Paksha the Pandajis’ days fill months ahead, and the family that books late gets whatever hour is left and a room that looked better in its photographs. Both are avoided the same way: fix the rite and the stay months ahead, alongside the train. Where to stay is its own article.
What is not in these figures
Travel to Gaya and back. Meals, which are satvik and inexpensive in the old town and which we do not bill. Daan of any kind. A doli up Pret Shila for an elder, hired at the foot of the hill on the day. Anything the family adds on the day after speaking to the Pandaji. We list these so that you are not surprised by them, not because they are large.
How these figures are set, and when they change
These are our figures, not a survey of the town. They are the ones on our cost page and the ones our desk builds every family's itinerary from, and when they change, this article and that page change together — the date at the top is the date they were last checked. What we cannot promise is what any other arrangement in Gaya costs; and we would say the same of any page that claims to. Ask us for your own dates, and you will get the same lines as above with your numbers in them, before anything is decided.
Before confirming your booking, meet the Gayawal pandits who perform the rites and tell us your travel dates and family requirements. Vayu will confirm the available purohit and itemise the rite, accommodation and transport you choose.